Tag Archives: Neilsen

GPS everywhere notwithstanding, there are still maps on the walls in most buildings that have a red circle somewhere on them accompanied by the words “You are here”. This is to reassure and reorient visitors by giving them some navigational bearings. Thus you can locate where you are at the moment and then find your way forward.

I had the pleasure of attending an expert panel discussion last week, all of whose participants did an outstanding job of analogously mapping where the media and technology are at the end of 2015 and where their trends are heading going into the New Year. It was entitled Digital Breakfast: Media and Tech Preview 2016, was held at the law firm of Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz in midtown Manhattan. It was organized and presented by Gotham Media, a New York based firm engaged in “Digital Strategy, Marketing and Events” as per their website.

This hour and a half presentation was a top-flight and highly enlightening event from start to finish. My gratitude and admiration for everyone involved in making this happen. Bravo! to all of you.

The panelists’ enthusiasm and perspectives fully engaged and transported the entire audience. I believe that everyone there appreciated and learned much from all of them. The participants included:

The event began on an unintentionally entertaining note when one of the speakers, Jesse Redniss, accidentally slipped out his chair. Someone in the audience called out “Do you need a lawyer?”, and considering the location of the conference, the room erupted into laughter.¹

Once the ensuing hilarity subsided, Mr. Goldblatt began by asking the panel for their media highlights for 2015.

Ms. Bond said it was the rise of streaming TV, citing Netflix and Amazon, among other industry leaders. For her, this is a time of interesting competition as consumers have increasing control over what they view. She also believes that this is a “fascinating time” for projects and investments in this market sector. Nonetheless, she does not think that cable will disappear.

Mr. Kurnit said that Verizon’s purchase of AOL was one of the critical events of 2015, as Verizon “wants to be 360” and this type of move might portend the future of TV. The second key development was the emergence of self-driving cars, which he expects to see implemented within the next 5 to 15 years.

Mr. Sreenivasan stated that social media is challenging, as indicated by the recent appearance of “Facebook fatigue” affecting its massive user base. Nonetheless, he said “the empire strikes back” as evidenced in their strong financial performance and the recent launch of Chan Zuckerberg LLC to eventually distribute the couple’s $45B fortune to charity. He also sees that current market looking “like 2006 again” insofar as podcasts, email and blogs making it easy to create and distribute content.

Part 2: Today’s Golden Age of TV

Mr. Goldblatt asked the panel for their POVs on what he termed the current “Golden Age of TV” because of the increasing diversity of new platforms, expanding number of content providers and the abundance of original programming. He started off by asking them for their market assessments.

Ms. Bond said that the definition of “television” is now “any video content on any screen”. As a ubiquitous example she cited content on mobile platforms. She also noted proliferation of payment methods as driving this market.

Mr. Kurnit said that the industry would remain a bit of a “mess” for the next three or four years because of the tremendous volume of original programming, businesses that operate as content aggregators, and pricing differentials. Sometime thereafter, these markets will “rationalize”. Nonetheless, the quality of today’s content is “terrific”, pointing to examples by such media companies as the programs on AMC and HBO‘s Game of Thrones. He also said that an “unbundled model” of content offerings would enable consumers to watch anywhere.

Mr. Redniss believes that “mobile transforms TV” insofar as smartphones have become the “new remote control” providing both access to content and “disoverability” of new offerings. He predicted that content would become “monetized across all screens”.

Mr. Sreenivasan mentioned the growing popularity of binge-watching as being an important phenomenon. He believes that the “zeitgeist changes daily” and that other changes are being “led by the audience”.

The panel moved to group discussion mode concerning:

Consumer Content Options: Ms. Bond asked how will the audience pay for either bundled or unbundled programming options. She believes that having this choice will provide consumers with “more control and options”. Mr. Redniss then asked how many apps or services will consumers be willing to pay for? He predicted that “everyone will have their own channel”. Mr. Kurnit added that he thought there are currently too many options and that “skinny bundles” of programming will be aggregated. Mr. Sreenivasan pointed towards the “Amazon model” where much content is now available but it is also available elsewhere and then Netflix’s offering of 30 original shows. He also wanted to know “Who will watch all of this good TV?”

New Content Creation and Aggregation: Mr. Goldblatt asked the panelists whether a media company can be both a content aggregator and a content creator. Mr. Kurnit said yes and Mr. Redniss immediately followed by citing the long-tail effect (statistical distributions in business analytics where there are higher numbers of data points away from the initial top or central parts of the distribution)³. Therefore, online content providers were not bound by the same rules as the TV networks. Still, he could foresee some of Amazon’s and Netflix’s original content ending up being broadcast on them. He also gave the example of Amazon’s House of Cards original programming as being indicative of the “changing market for more specific audiences”. Ultimately, he believes that meeting such audiences’ needs was part of “playing the long game” in this marketplace.

Binge-Watching: Mr. Kurnit followed up by predicting that binge-watching and the “binge-watching bucket” will go away. Mr. Redniss agreed with him and, moreover, talked about the “need for human interaction” to build up audiences. This now takes the form of “superfans” discussing each episode in online venues. For example, he pointed to the current massive marketing campaign build upon finding out the fate of Jon Snow on Games of Thrones.

Cord-Cutting: Mr. Sreenivasan believes that we will still have cable in the future. Ms. Bond said that service offerings like Apple TV will become more prevalent. Mr. Kunit said he currently has 21 cable boxes. Mr. Redniss identified himself as more of a cord-shaver who, through the addition of Netflix and Hulu, has reduced his monthly cable bill.

Mr. Sreenivasan expressed his optimism about the prospects of VR and AR, citing the pending market launches of the Oculus Rift headset and Facebook 360 immersive videos. The emergence of these technologies is creating a “new set of contexts”. He also spoke proudly of the Metropolitan Museum Media Lab using Oculus for an implementation called Diving Into Pollack (see the 10th project down on this page), that enables users to “walk into a Jackson Pollack painting”.

Mr. Kurnit raised the possibility of using Oculus to view Jurassic Park. In terms of movie production and immersion, he said “This changes everything”.

Mr. Redniss said that professional sports were a whole new growth area for VR and AR, where you will need “goggles, not a screen”. Mr. Kurnit followed up mentioning a startup that is placing 33 cameras at Major League Baseball stadiums in order to provide 360 degree video coverage of games. (Although he did not mention the company by name, my own Googling indicates that he was probably referring to the “FreeD” system developed by Replay Technologies.)

Mr. Goldblatt next asked the panels for their thoughts about the impacts and economics of ad-blocking software.

Mr. Redniss said that ad-blocking apps will affect how advertisers get their online audience’s attention. He thinks a workable alternative is to use technology to “stitch their ads into content” more effectively.

Mr. Sreenivasan believes that “ads must get better” in order to engage their audience rather than have viewers looking for means to avoid them. He noted another alternative used on the show Fargo where network programming does not permit them to use fast-forward to avoid ads.

Mr. Kurnit expects that ads will be blocked based on the popularity and extensibility of ad-blocking apps. Thus, he also believes that ads need to improve but he is not confident of the ad industry’s ability to do so. Furthermore, when advertisers are more highly motivated because of cost and audience size, they produce far more creative work for events like the NFL Super Bowl.

Someone from the audience asked the panel how ads will become integrated into VR and AR environments. Mr. Redniss said this will happen in cases where this technology can reproduce “real world experiences” for consumers. An example of this is the Cruise Ship Virtual Tours available on Carnival Cruise’s website.

Mr. Sreenivasan thinks that geolocation technology will continue to find new applications in “real-life experiences”. He gave as an example the use of web beacons by the Metropolitan Museum.

Ms. Bond foresees more “one-to-one” and “one-to-few” messaging capabilities, branded emjois, and a further examination of the “role of the marketer” in today’s media.

Mr. Kurnit believes that drones will continue their momentum into the mainstream. He sees the sky filling up with them as they are “productive tools” for a variety of commercial applications.

Mr. Redniss expressed another long-term prospect of “advertisers picking up broadband costs for consumers”. This might take the form of ads being streamed to smart phones during NFL games. In the shorter term, he can foresee Facebook becoming a significant simulcaster of professional sporting events.

1. This immediately reminded of a similar incident years ago when I was attending a presentation at the local bar association on the topic of litigating cases involving brain injuries. The first speaker was a neurologist who opened by telling the audience all about his brand new laptop and how it was the latest state-of-the-art-model. Unfortunately, he could not get it to boot up no matter what he tried. Someone from the back of audience then yelled out “Hey doc, it’s not brain surgery”. The place went into an uproar.